‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Team Talks Very Meta Episode, That Kiss & More

Marni Grossman / Paramount+

Wesley plays the actor who stars as the captain of The Last Frontier. “I wanted to create my own character, Maxwell Saint, but then I wanted to also give the fans a little bit of a treat by sort of doing the sort of, I guess, for lack of a better word, satirical pop culture version of William Shatner‘s Kirk,” he shares. “And it’s obviously, it’s exaggerated, it’s fun, it’s meant to be playful, but it was an opportunity for me to do that so that fans who love The Original Series can feel that nostalgia because my approach to Kirk when I first got this role was to create my own version of Kirk that didn’t have any of the sort of mimicking copycat version of what William Shatner did. And this was a great opportunity to do the opposite of that, which was sort of try to emulate a little bit of his performance in the ’60s, but with a comedic twist.”

This episode goes all out when it comes to being meta: There’s a line in the episode about Mount’s character being replaced on his own show, and we know one day, Kirk will replace Pike as captain. “Nothing is ever more meta than watching [Jonathan] Frakes shoot it,” says executive producer Akiva Goldsman. (Frakes starred as Riker on The Next Generation and reprised his role on Picard; he’s also directed across the Trek franchise.) There was nothing too meta they decided to cut, he says, pointing out they even have bloopers at the end for The Last Frontier.

Adds executive producer Henry Alonso Myers, “It is very much a comic episode, but there is an importance about science fiction in it that we really wanted to get out. It’s had that value to us. I think it has that value to the kind of people who watch this show, who watch shows like this, and the things that they mean to us and the things that they mean to us in how we see the future. So even as we’re giving a comic episode with all kinds of ridiculousness in it, it has a core that is truthful.”

The cast had “a blast” filming the episode, says Gooding. “I think we all had a really good time getting to step out of our traditional character tropes in our traditional genre style and to really just get real fabulous and fantastical with it on the holodeck. It’s still very Trek because of the nature of where we are and how we got to where we are, but to play characters that are so different from the people we play and have been playing for the past few years, I had a fantastic time. I think things that are high drama, high camp, high theater really appeal to me. It’s some of my favorite type of work to do, and to work with Jonathan Frakes was such a gift. He’s always such a pleasure to work with, and to do it in this sort of whodunnit murder mystery situation was really, really fun for me.”

Bush calls it “an absolutely hoot from beginning to end,” with “incredible costumes” and an “unreal set” and something she’ll remember the rest of her life. But there was one aspect of it that she admits was “strange” and “exposing”: using her own Australian accent. “I’m used to Chapel’s accent being a way in to be like, ‘Okay, cool, now I’m Chapel.’ It’s like a turning point, and I switch into her,” she explains.

Marni Grossman / Paramount+

Chong enjoyed exploring her character’s love for Amelia Moon stories as a kid and for dance. “I feel like this episode for her is just dipping into her passions,” she says before adding, “And part of the fun of that whole episode was getting to see you guys and interacting with these different characters. There’s the Sunny Lupino death scene. And every time Rebecca did it, it was just even more hilarious. It would go on for minutes.”

Romijn interjects, “I really milked it. Very dramatic death scene.”

The episode also explores how La’an has come to rely on Spock (Ethan Peck), with him showing up in the simulation but it taking her a moment to realize it’s an AI version. And the way those two have been growing closer culminates in a kiss at the end.

“This is the first time that La’an’s really been open to love. And although she had the relationship in another timeline with Kirk, that never worked its way in real life. So this is the first romance she’s kind of had in the series,” Chong notes. “And so I think she sees herself in Spock as well because he’s quite reserved and she’s had to be very reserved and the half Vulcan, half human thing, and her feeling with the recessive augmented DNA that she has within her, I think they find a commonality. Who knows where it will go. But I think at that point, the kiss is very much welcome to La’an to have someone that she can be with so she doesn’t feel alone.”

According to Myers, “I think that they are both taken in by the potential that they have and what they go on this season, it’s a casual relationship but a mature one, and I will say this: You will be surprised by how much the dancing has value in helping them to get through some genuinely difficult stuff.”

What is clear is that these are two characters who need each other at this point, whether it’s romantically or platonically. Goldsman agrees. “What I like about it is if you stopped in the middle of last season and said, ‘Who will these people need?’ You would not have thought it would have been each other.”

The EP also reveals, “I think in its first iteration, the kiss happened one episode earlier and then we moved — in fact, there was a telegraphed almost kiss in the dance lesson [in Episode 2] that we cut. It was actually really hard to cut around because, as it started to evolve, we realized that it was more pleasurable to slow-play it, but the way it was shot, it was undeniable in the dance lesson. And then we were like, ‘Oh, do we have coverage to cut it out? The slow burn’s better.'”

Elsewhere in the episode, Scotty struggles with asking for help when he runs into challenges with the holodeck. According to Quinn, his experience on the Stardiver prior to joining the Enterprise plays a major role in that.

“People saying that they would double-check things when they didn’t, and then things went wrong. So I felt like it was that experience that [led to], ‘No, no, I can do it. I can do it all by myself,'” he says. “But also I think he is just a bit of a control freak, and he’s stubborn like that, and he’s competitive, and he kind of has got a lot more to prove than I think he’s aware of. I don’t think he would ever ask for help because he is competitive both with himself, but also, yeah, with the crewmates. He wants to prove himself to the captain. He wants to prove himself to Una.”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Thursdays, Paramount+